


hands

by ottermo



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Death Mention (Anatole's), Elster Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 14:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Missing scene from 3.7 - Leo never thought his little brother capable of taking a life.





	hands

**Author's Note:**

> yet another thing i forgot that i'd ever written!   
> posted to tumblr between e7 and e8. my favourite shot in the whole 7th episode was the tiny snippet of leo cleaning max's hands, even while there's still blood on his own face. max is so used to giving, etc.

 

“Max.”

Leo’s voice doesn’t seem to reach his brother; Max is still staring at the palm of his hand, studying the blue fluid as it runs toward his wrist. Stanley has let Leo go now, and he steps carefully forwards.

“Max,” Leo says again. “Maxie, it’s me. It’s okay.”

It isn’t, Leo realises, it definitely isn’t, a fact made more certain when Max eventually turns to look at him. The look on his face just about breaks Leo’s heart. Watching Max fight so furiously, Leo had begun to wonder if Anatole had been partly right - that perhaps his brother had changed during Leo’s year-long absence from the world. But looking at Max now… it’s clear whatever change there has been, it hasn’t made this any easier.

Leo has never killed before. He has been in enough fights in his time, but to his knowledge nobody has ever died from wounds he’s inflicted. Even so, he has always privately thought himself capable of it, if it had to be done, whereas he has never once dreamed that Max could… that Max would even be able to take a life. Certainly, Leo would do anything to change places with him right now, if only so that he wouldn’t have to see the utter despair on Max’s face.

“You had no choice,” Leo says. “It was him, or… all of us.”

“I know,” says Max, and Leo notes that this is not new speech; he is only echoing his last statement, in the exact same tone, as if stuck on a loop of code. Perhaps he is. Perhaps that is how it feels.

Dispensing with words for the time being, Leo steps closer still, approaches Max the way one might a frightened baby animal. It ought to be an amusing contrast to the lethal display he’s just witnessed, but it’s not, it’s only sad. When Leo embraces him, Max clings to him like a drowning man, as though some invisible current will take them both if they don’t hold on. Neither speaks. Leo is acutely aware of the volume of his own breathing, the ragged edges of relief plainly heard against Max’s silence.

Leo’s head is still throbbing, and his body has not forgotten the beating. Still, somehow, he finds a strength he does not fully understand. This impossible resilience people have been talking about in whispers ever since he woke up: for the first time he is really grateful for it.

They part. Leo notices that Stanley has left them, hopes he has gone in search of Sam. Instinctively he feels for Joe’s letter in his pocket - he must deliver it. He hasn’t read it, but for all Joe’s faults Leo recognises in him the father he’s never known, feels that he owes it to Sam to make sure he gets the chance to see it too.

When he glances back, it’s to see that Max’s eyes have stolen back to his hand, still bathed in Anatole’s fluid. Leo surveys the nearby workstation, and spies a pile of cotton swabs. He picks one up, and gently takes hold of Max’s hand.

“Let’s get rid of this,” he says.

Max tries to pull back. “No,” he says, “You’re bleeding. Let me…”

Leo looks up at him. “Wait your turn.”

For a moment it seems like Max might smile, but it doesn’t quite happen. In any case, he lets Leo wipe away the fluid. He takes his time with it, one finger at a time, showing Max that he understands the gravity of the occasion, what it symbolises. Anatole had been a trusted friend, by all accounts. He cannot be worn like war paint, but neither can he be scrubbed away unthinkingly.

“Thank you,” says Max at length.

Leo smooths his finger along Max’s palm. “It’s alright.” He pauses. “And it will be alright.”

To Max’s credit, he doesn’t show his disbelief, just watches Leo work, unable to take his eyes away from the blue liquid for as long as it remains.

Leo wishes it were really this simple, that wiping away what passes for blood could be as permanent a measure, as clear-cut a reversal on Max’s soul as it is on his skin.

Suddenly the lights die, a deflated hum that echoes through the repair bay. Max and Leo look at each other, locking eyes in silent concern. Leo waits to see what Max will do: this is his domain, his fortress. The home of his people.

He will follow wherever Max goes, that’s the only thing he’s certain of.

 

 


End file.
